I haven't seen Knowing but isn't that the apocalypse. It ain't an action scene. Its the end of the world, nothing survives. It is entirely different. There is no way to access the damage because there is no one left to access the damage.

Any other examples?

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"The fundamental decencies are parceled out unequally at birth." - FitzgeraldStreet Version - "Not everyone is decent."

That Marvel movies are xenophobic and fascist and have committed crimes against humanity! And that DC movies are worthy of the Nobel Prize for Peace and they are shining bastion of multi-cultural acceptance and inter-racial mingling!

Seriously!

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"The fundamental decencies are parceled out unequally at birth." - FitzgeraldStreet Version - "Not everyone is decent."

When Captain America sees Loki working the crowd in Berlin, he says "the last time I saw a lunatic working a crowd of Germans, it didn't end well".

It's a racist joke, as it attributes the rise of Hitler to Germans being Germans, as opposed to the historical and material conditions present in that part of the world at the time. It's also ignorant though, and you know what, that's what a lot of people believe.

The actual line was:

Quote:

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

Maybe people think Superman, as the greatest, most radiant, pure, archetypal essence of superhero should be held to a higher standard.

Maybe, anyway.

It's funny because I just got done watching All Star Superman and their were moments in his fight with Lex where he is thrown through buildings…the same thing happened in the Justice League cartoons…where there is mass destruction. I don't get why it's an issue here.

and I get that Superman is held to a higher standard but I still feel it's hypocritical that we have devoted so much time discussing the right and wrong of Superman killing and yet praise the Iron Man movies which killed it's villains all three times. We blame Loki and the Chitauri for the destruction in NY but we blame Superman for the actions of his villains. We open our minds to all manner of interpretations of the Marvel characters (let's face it Captain America is probably the only Marvel hero that acts like his comic book counter part…maybe Black Widow…Hawkeye wasn't douchey enough)…yet Superman must be locked into this stone set of ideals that we have for him. We allow Marvel to interpret as they like and then fault Superman for not behaving like he did in Action Comics #237.

You could post on this board that you disagree with Snyder. That doesn't mean you have interacted with him. It means you don't subscribe to his thought process.

So it is perfectly possible for Cap to disagree with Hitler without interacting with him. Hell I disagree with Hitler too and I have never interacted (not can ever interact) with him.

All very nice, but in Captain America's world and mind, Hitler was not the major German figure of world war II, the Red Skull was. So though that anti-German joke has meaning in our world, in his would it would have less meaning. It would be more equivalent to someone here referring to Himmler or Rommel, and I guarantee you that 90% of people on the street don't know who Himmler and Rommel were, just as they don't know who Hirohito was. Therefore, when Captain America made the following joke:

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

It only makes sense in his world to assume he was referring to Red Skull, who was a man standing above everyone else when he was in Germany and they ended up disagreeing. However, the audience laughed because they thought it was a reference to Hitler.

All that aside from the fact that the joke is childish anti-German nonsense. What's the analogy between Loki and Hitler? They're both gathering a crowd of Germans. Hahahaha. Once more, if Loki had been in Los Angeles, and someone had made the same comment as CA but referring to Rodney King and not to Hitler, the audience would have laughed just as hard, but it would be recognised as silly and problematic.

So two problems have been demonstrated. The joke is offensive. And it's a continuity error. Carry on.

Again, he is a great storyteller and script doctor but directing wise he is just good. Honestly i think he did a great job in the Avengers but that's because he gets the characters. Much ado about nothing was solid but nothing spectacualar, directing wise. Snyder is one the most underrated directors in my opinion.

Underrated how so? His plainly a visual man and gets his dues in that regard. So far he hasn't proven himself to be anything but visuals.

All very nice, but in Captain America's world and mind, Hitler was not the major German figure of world war II, the Red Skull was. So though that anti-German joke has meaning in our world, in his would it would have less meaning. It would be more equivalent to someone here referring to Himmler or Rommel, and I guarantee you that 90% of people on the street don't know who Himmler and Rommel were, just as they don't know who Hirohito was. Therefore, when Captain America made the following joke:

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

It only makes sense in his world to assume he was referring to Red Skull, who was a man standing above everyone else when he was in Germany and they ended up disagreeing. However, the audience laughed because they thought it was a reference to Hitler.

All that aside from the fact that the joke is childish anti-German nonsense. What's the analogy between Loki and Hitler? They're both gathering a crowd of Germans. Hahahaha. Once more, if Loki had been in Los Angeles, and someone had made the same comment as CA but referring to Rodney King and not to Hitler, the audience would have laughed just as hard, but it would be recognized as silly and problematic.

So two problems have been demonstrated. The joke is offensive. And it's a continuity error. Carry on.

But Hitler exists in Cap's world too. Why do you think he was referring to Red Skull? I think he was referring to Hitler because of the entire context of the scene. Loki said some very fascist things which point to him being a Hitler figure. And the Holocaust survivor stood up in defiance to Loki. So even that was a reference to Hitler only.

I don't think Red Skull had anything to do with that scene.

And I personally didn't laugh at the moment, nor the audience. I thought it was a sombre heroic moment.

__________________

"The fundamental decencies are parceled out unequally at birth." - FitzgeraldStreet Version - "Not everyone is decent."

It's funny because I just got done watching All Star Superman and their were moments in his fight with Lex where he is thrown through buildings…the same thing happened in the Justice League cartoons…where there is mass destruction. I don't get why it's an issue here.

and I get that Superman is held to a higher standard but I still feel it's hypocritical that we have devoted so much time discussing the right and wrong of Superman killing and yet praise the Iron Man movies which killed it's villains all three times. We blame Loki and the Chitauri for the destruction in NY but we blame Superman for the actions of his villains. We open our minds to all manner of interpretations of the Marvel characters (let's face it Captain America is probably the only Marvel hero that acts like his comic book counter part…maybe Black Widow…Hawkeye wasn't douchey enough)…yet Superman must be locked into this stone set of ideals that we have for him. We allow Marvel to interpret as they like and then fault Superman for not behaving like he did in Action Comics #237.

I think part of it is that a lot of people don't like the movie, they don't really understand why they don't like it, and thus they gravitate to simplistic arguments. There's also the fact that a lot of people who do know what they're talking about dislike the movie for distinct reasons and with distinct explanations, but when you meld their positions it loses their coherence.

People didn't want to see Superman kill because they have that preconception that he doesn't kill. By having Superman kill, they were breaking a taboo, and there was not much payoff for that taboo. It was just a simple action sequence, it was not built up to in the movie prior to that scene nor was it followed up following that scene, so it breaks a taboo and doesn't feel integrated.

It's not an issue for Iron Man because Iron Man has very few actual fans, people didn't have preconceptions. My only preconception of Iron Man was from the last season of the 1990s Spider Mn cartoon... and from that all I wanted was for War Machine to eventually show up and he did. They satisfied my preconceptions of Iron Man in the first movie. And most viewers had even fewer preconceptions of Iron Man than me. At best they had vaguely heard of Iron Man.

Nearly nobody reads the comics. However, Superman had five movies out by the time MoS came out, and two TV shows, Lois and Clark and Smallville were both very successful for several seasons. It's not the same. The comics, imo, should only be used a testbed for story ideas.

But Hitler exists in Cap's world too. Why do you think he was referring to Red Skull? I think he was referring to Hitler because of the entire context of the scene. Loki said some very fascist things which point to him being a Hitler figure. And the Holocaust survivor stood up in defiance to Loki. So even that was a reference to Hitler only.

I don't think Red Skull had anything to do with that scene.

And I personally didn't laugh at the moment, nor the audience. I thought it was a sombre heroic moment.

One of the things that struck me when watching CA:TFA, and I admit that I was falling asleep in that movie, but anyway in the parts where I managed to stay awake, was that Red Skull had superseded Adolf Hitler. He had more and better weapons and resources than Hitler ever had. Further, the US military was focusing their greatest military asset (Captain America) on fighting Red Skull, not on Normandy or wherever. We also see, as part of Red Skull's arc, that he eventually grows to completely ignore Hitler, and then absolutely nothing happens to him afterwards. All of which, together, proves that within the movie's narrative, and thus within the historical perspective of Steve Rogers, Red Skull was the dominant German figure of World War II.

Regardless of whether or not that comment was meant to be funny, it is still an offensive and ultrasimplistic comment. It taps into the audience's belief that Germans = Nazis. That's the reason they wrote that scene to take place in Germany. So that they could compare Loki to Hitler.

If you want to call Transformers racist you can, but let's not pretend that the Avengers doesn't tap into the matrix of oppression.

Tony Stark -- The leader, white male in 50s and good at everything;
Bruce Banner -- White male, 40s or 50s
Thor -- White male, might be 1000 years old, looks like he is 28.
Steve Rogers -- white male, looks like he is 30, really he's ~92 years old.
Hawkguy -- white male, looks like he is in his 30s
Natasha Romanov -- white *female*, probably early 30s

This is a cast of white heroes that the audience can get behind, the Avengers cast in costumes could be argued to look like a ku klux klan halloween party. Transformers at least had some black cast members who contributed, certainly more than Nick Fury who is there to contribute as a motivational speaker. Further, not only is the cast white, but it's not even a diverse white: it's specifically a northern european white.

Contrast this to Man of Steel, which had black actors for General Swanwick and Perry White, and of their white actors, not all were northern European exraction (e.g. Chris Meloni, Ayelet Zurer, Alessandro Juliani, Antje Traue). If race is an issue you genuinely care about, then Avengers is far behind Man of Steel, Pacific Rim, or Man of Steel.

I leave aside some of the offensive jokes in the Avengers, which mock adopted people, Germans, etc. I also leave aside the military porn at the start, where Shield mocks some incompetent eastern European mobsters in a show of American military (we have F-18s on your ass!!!) meant to stroke the audience's ego about the distribution of power in the world.

Wow just wow, I normally agree with you on a lot of your posts but lately find myself disagreeing with a lot of the things you state. How is MOS anymore better than Avengers in terms of diversity? Hell I would say the role of Nick Fury was more relevant than that of Perry White and the general. You talk about white washing? What about krypton? A race of highly evolved beings who are God like on earth, funny there was no black kryptonians in site. A minority could take offence to that saying what only the white man can come from an advanced race. Also I am sure minorities don't care about whether a Caucasian person comes from Western Europe or Eastern Europe because all they see is a white person so your remarks as to even the Caucasian cast being diverse falls short. And MOS pushed the American military agenda more so than Avengers ever did. All those ads about the military and the likes how did you miss that. At the end of the day neither movie is racist but if you want to pick on one for something might as well do the other.

So Zach Snyder said something interesting in the interview with Kevin Smith.

Smith asked him about one of the parts he didn't like, which was the shot of little Clark at the end playing with his dog and pretending to be a hero with a red cape. A lot of people didn't buy that scene because it doesn't make sense for a kid to play with a red cape in a world without Superman, since Superman is the reasons kids run around with capes.

Snyder says that the way he interprets it, Clark has an ancestral memory of Kryptonian fashion, so it made sense for him to instinctively wear a red cape. Further, though Jonathan Kent dies prior to ever seeing Clark fulfill his potential, with that scene, he gets to see Clark be Superman. So it's really a scene for Pa Kent.

One of the things that struck me when watching CA:TFA, and I admit that I was falling asleep in that movie, but anyway in the parts where I managed to stay awake, was that Red Skull had superseded Adolf Hitler. He had more and better weapons and resources than Hitler ever had. Further, the US military was focusing their greatest military asset (Captain America) on fighting Red Skull, not on Normandy or wherever. We also see, as part of Red Skull's arc, that he eventually grows to completely ignore Hitler, and then absolutely nothing happens to him afterwards. All of which, together, proves that within the movie's narrative, and thus within the historical perspective of Steve Rogers, Red Skull was the dominant German figure of World War II.

Regardless of whether or not that comment was meant to be funny, it is still an offensive and ultrasimplistic comment. It taps into the audience's belief that Germans = Nazis. That's the reason they wrote that scene to take place in Germany. So that they could compare Loki to Hitler.

Let's leave aside the fact that Loki is a poor allegory for Hitler.

I just read online (frankly even I did not remember) but Red Skull was working for Hitler and hadn't in any way supplanted him.

And I see the scene completely differently. It was poignant precisely because it was staged in Germany. The German people were not villainized at all, Loki was! A German Holocaust survivor actually stood up to Loki.

That scene, to me, basically meant that what they were telling Loki was, we did not even stand down in front of Hitler and defeated him (the greatest monster ever on our planet), who the **** are you? And we will not stand down in front of you.

__________________

"The fundamental decencies are parceled out unequally at birth." - FitzgeraldStreet Version - "Not everyone is decent."

Wow just wow, I normally agree with you on a lot of your posts but lately find myself disagreeing with a lot of the things you state. How is MOS anymore better than Avengers in terms of diversity? Hell I would say the role of Nick Fury was more relevant than that of Perry White and the general. You talk about white washing? What about krypton? A race of highly evolved beings who are God like on earth, funny there was no black kryptonians in site. A minority could take offence to that saying what only the white man can come from an advanced race. Also I am sure minorities don't care about whether a Caucasian person comes from Western Europe or Eastern Europe because all they see is a white person so your remarks as to even the Caucasian cast being diverse falls short. And MOS pushed the American military agenda more so than Avengers ever did. All those ads about the military and the likes how did you miss that. At the end of the day neither movie is racist but if you want to pick on one for something might as well do the other.

Every movie and every major production of any kind produced in a racist society will inevitably be contaminated by racism, sociology 201, maybe sociology 301. I don't think we should be immature about it, we should be open to discussing it and exploring it without getting defensive, as you are.

The fact that Krypton has no minorities is probably a plus, regardless of whether they intended it that way. It makes sense that a genetically engineered society, that believes itself to be "perfected", would have less genetic diversity. In contrast, the genetic diversity we have on EArth is precisely because of evolution, people with ancestries that are geographically distinct will appear different, as different geographies select for different traits, in addition to the genetic drift effect.

It also makes sense when constructing a foreign society to have a consistent look. In Troy, all of the Greek characters are Germanic/Wasp-looking, and the Trojans look southern european. In Star Trek, Klingons are always played by Black actors, and you never see an east-asian Vulcan. Why do you think that is? It makes sense to have a consistent look for a foreign culture, particularly one with a genetic belief system like Krypton's, and that includes reduced racial diversity. With that said, though Krypton is genetically homogeneous within the movie, Ayelet Zurer and Antje Traue are foreign actors in real life, Snyder had the courage to hire them, Whedon did not.

Your comment about different kinds of whiteness is flat out incorrect. I'm a minority, it matters very much. There are in fact different kinds of whiteness, and that applies to every other race. Italian, Greek, Scandinavian, etc are all different and located at different heights of the inequality ladder. There are also different kinds of black and different kinds of Asian. In the US, forms often ask if a person is "white, asian, hispanic, or black" because those are the only four choices. That's incorrect, there's in fact a significant difference and gradation levels within those artificial and fake groupings. Look up the list of America's white presidents. They're not just white. They're wasps.

As for the military, MoS played a relatively complex role. The leadership was shown as having mixed feelings to Superman, though the rank and file grew to like him. The movie ends with Superman crashing a predator drone. That's not an American military agenda. This is a stark contrast to the Avengers, who are military assets and all have explicit ties to the US military except for Thor, who leads the military on Asgard. In general though the military and government in the MCU is totally lacking in complexity. It's shallower than we find in any of MoS, the Nolan films, or the X-Men movies, which is ironic.

In the top 12 cast members
- TA has 3 women, MoS has 4 women;
- TA has 1 black actor, MoS has 2 black actors;
- TA has 1 actor not born in Canada/USA/UK/Australia, MoS has 2 actors not born in Canada/USA/UK/Australia, both of which are more prominent;
- TA has 3 actors older than 50, MoS has 4 actors older than 50;

TA, in this regard, was surprising, as I've come to expect better of Whedon. If you're a Joss Whedon fan, then TA can easily be regarded as him selling out to the man. It falls so short of the standards he achieved in Buffy, Firefly, and Dollhouse.

I hope that the Justice League is better in this regard. I expect Avengers 2 to be better. We'll see.

Every movie and every major production of any kind produced in a racist society will inevitably be contaminated by racism, sociology 201, maybe sociology 301. I don't think we should be immature about it, we should be open to discussing it and exploring it without getting defensive, as you are.

The fact that Krypton has no minorities is probably a plus, regardless of whether they intended it that way. It makes sense that a genetically engineered society, that believes itself to be "perfected", would have less genetic diversity. In contrast, the genetic diversity we have on EArth is precisely because of evolution, people with ancestries that are geographically distinct will appear different, as different geographies select for different traits, in addition to the genetic drift effect.

It also makes sense when constructing a foreign society to have a consistent look. In Troy, all of the Greek characters are Germanic/Wasp-looking, and the Trojans look southern european. In Star Trek, Klingons are always played by Black actors, and you never see an east-asian Vulcan. Why do you think that is? It makes sense to have a consistent look for a foreign culture, particularly one with a genetic belief system like Krypton's, and that includes reduced racial diversity. With that said, though Krypton is genetically homogeneous within the movie, Ayelet Zurer and Antje Traue are foreign actors in real life, Snyder had the courage to hire them, Whedon did not.

Your comment about different kinds of whiteness is flat out incorrect. I'm a minority, it matters very much. There are in fact different kinds of whiteness, and that applies to every other race. Italian, Greek, Scandinavian, etc are all different and located at different heights of the inequality ladder. There are also different kinds of black and different kinds of Asian. In the US, forms often ask if a person is "white, asian, hispanic, or black" because those are the only four choices. That's incorrect, there's in fact a significant difference and gradation levels within those artificial and fake groupings. Look up the list of America's white presidents. They're not just white. They're wasps.

As for the military, MoS played a relatively complex role. The leadership was shown as having mixed feelings to Superman, though the rank and file grew to like him. The movie ends with Superman crashing a predator drone. That's not an American military agenda. This is a stark contrast to the Avengers, who are military assets and all have explicit ties to the US military except for Thor, who leads the military on Asgard. In general though the military and government in the MCU is totally lacking in complexity. It's shallower than we find in any of MoS, the Nolan films, or the X-Men movies, which is ironic.

I am not getting defensive as I am not personally invested in neither franchise, what I do see is an unfair examination of the Avengers movie to highlight just how A ok MOS was. You talk about a lack of diversity on krypton and genetical engineering but this couldn't always have been the case so what happened to other ethnicities? Or will you state that the Caucasian ethnicity proved to be superior hence other ethnicities died out on krypton due to not cutting it in superiority? To me just sounds like a flimsy excuse on how you can try and excuse MOS from any white washing accusations. In Thor we had a black Norse God something unheard of and very controversial but hey Marvel and that white washing right.

You might be a minority with a more open view on things but I have found most minorities don't tend to focus on what country Caucasians come from and just see a white guy or white girl and vice versa. No one distinguishes if someone is from Germany or America or Jamaica or Africa when in a movie they just see a white person or a black person and the only thing that gives it away is an accent.

And you missed my point completely in regards to military agenda in MOS and it's promotion. You try and talk about how Avengers tried to highlight how great and powerful the US army is but MOS also did the same with it's soldier of fortune ads and the likes. Not that there is nothing wrong with that but like I said don't call one out and not the other. Personally I think this discussion is silly and like someone already stated your overreaching. You probably won't drop this as you seem like someone that likes to have the last word so I expect a rebuttal.

So Zach Snyder said something interesting in the interview with Kevin Smith.

Smith asked him about one of the parts he didn't like, which was the shot of little Clark at the end playing with his dog and pretending to be a hero with a red cape. A lot of people didn't buy that scene because it doesn't make sense for a kid to play with a red cape in a world without Superman, since Superman is the reasons kids run around with capes.

Snyder says that the way he interprets it, Clark has an ancestral memory of Kryptonian fashion, so it made sense for him to instinctively wear a red cape. Further, though Jonathan Kent dies prior to ever seeing Clark fulfill his potential, with that scene, he gets to see Clark be Superman. So it's really a scene for Pa Kent.